Originally posted by: Fern
Originally posted by: JS80
He's talking about "legacy of discrimination" and that racism is still a huge problem in this country.
I didn't get that bit from the excerpts I saw. Rather, I thought he was explaining about how many black felt about it. That some (older) black people still harbor bitterness and resentment from treatment back in the 60's etc.
He also made the case about how some whites harbor bitterness and resentment from things like affirmative action and the like.
I didn't hear him say he supports those views (to the contrary actually), but rather he is honestly (and at some risk) just bringing them out into the open.
In all the recent discussion around here about this matter, unless I missed it, no one has brought up what I think a very important and over-looked point - the idea that HIV was invented by white men, we brought 911 upon ourselves, drugs are being allowed into inner cities to destroy young black people -
these are not "fringe" beliefs among the black population.
Further, hearing political coment in black churches in not uncommom either. It's long been recognized that black churches are the foundation of the black political network. Every candidate that comes down South (where there is a sizable black population) campaigns in black churches. Hey, it ain't by mere coincident that most black political leaders have the word "Reverand" in front of their names (ML King, J Jackson, Al Sharpton).
I thought it a pretty courageous speech. He shined a spotlight on some problems most would rather bury in an effort to move past. Not so long ago, many were looking at Obama's success in the campaign and patting ourselves on the back for having moved past race. Yup, and it just came roaring back in a very naked and brutal way.
Im starting to feel some empathy for the guy, as a man with a foot planted on each side of the cultrual divide he is forced to take a measure of how wide that gulf is between the two. And looks to me like each side wants him to come to them, and denounce the other. He can no more do that than split himself in two.
Fern